House Committee Hears Of Budget Shortfalls, Again

March 23, 1999|By WILLIAM H. MCMICHAEL Daily Press

NORFOLK NAVAL STATION — Two years ago, a panel of senior military leaders told a House subcommittee meeting at Langley Air Force Base that budget shortfalls were eating away at the readiness of their forces.

During a similar hearing Monday at Norfolk Naval Station, the testimony sounded like a broken record. Some of those same leaders, armed with new statistics and anecdotes, repeated what has become a mantra: Front-line military units are prepared for combat, but at the expense of the units and equipment back home. And there is a new concern: Troops, exasperated over spending so much time away from home, are leaving the military in droves.

The problem, in the words of Rep. Herbert Bateman, chairman of the Subcommittee on Military Readiness, is "too few people trying to do too much work."

Bateman and five other members of his 22-member panel spent about four hours listening to six senior officers and a panel of eight other commanders and senior noncommissioned officers paint a picture of today's forces. It was by turns upbeat - in terms of ability to "get the job done" - and bleak.

"I'm very proud of the achievements of all 1.2 million people under my command," Adm. Harold W. Gehman, commander of the Norfolk-based U.S. Atlantic Command, told the subcommittee.

"It is through their efforts, their skill and their superhuman determination that our readiness has not fallen more dramatically than it currently has."

Later, Gehman, who is responsible for the training of all U.S.-based forces, said that if the military is deployed into Kosovo, then U.S. forces would be "fully capable" of simultaneously patrolling the "no-fly" zones over Bosnia, northern Iraq and southern Iraq, as well as defending Korea and all other U.S. interests.

If the front-line units can do the job, many are doing it with less, and with aging equipment. According to the statistics and anecdotal data, the military's readiness problems are becoming systemic. They stem, the leaders said, from the combination of a decade of falling defense budgets and a deployment pace that has kept a smaller military on the go more than during its Cold War days.

* Atlantic Fleet ships have 7,600 fewer sailors than required. The USS Theodore Roosevelt Battle Group and USS Kearsarge Amphibious Ready Group will deploy later this week with 92 percent of their crew requirements - the best showing in the last four major deployments.

* Only 75 percent of Air Combat Command's F-15C air-to-air fighter jets are "mission capable." On average, that means 16 of the 58 jets stationed at Langley cannot fly. Half of the Air Force's B-1B bombers cannot fly at any given time.

* Units in the Army's Forces Command have only about 75 percent of the sergeants they require and have "key shortages" in the Army's top 16 critical job categories.

Bateman's committee has heard such stories for years. What it hadn't heard until last fall, he said, was a reflection of such concerns at the Pentagon level. That has now changed.

"Fortunately, there is now a broad consensus that we do have a readiness problem, and a healthy debate about how to fix it," Gehman said. Later, he explained, "We now have statistics to demonstrate that, and that's what we were lacking in the past."

Where much disagreement lies ahead is how to fund the repairs: The Pentagon thinks it needs an additional $70 billion over the next six years to support "unfunded requirements." On his subcommittee, Bateman said, "the Democratic members have been very, very supportive to do more than the president's budget recommended." But elsewhere, he said, "We've gotten nothing but criticism and threats of vetoes and what have you because we've increased the defense budget."

William H. McMichael can be reached at 247-7862 or by e-mail at bmcmichael@dailypress.com